As the critical dimension for devices drops below 100 nm, the wall angle (slope) of photoresist becomes very critical for subsequent etching, deposition, and lift off processes. The resist wall angle may vary from positive, normal, to negative, as illustrated in FIGS. 1a, 1b and 1c respectively.
Positive and normal sidewall slopes can be easily developed from negative-tone chemically amplified resists. However, it is nearly impossible to produce a negative wall angle from either negative or positive-tone chemically amplified resists, especially by e-beam lithography. Due to electron forward scattering in the resist and backward scattering from the substrate, a positive wall angle is usually formed with negative-tone chemically amplified resists. Positive e-beam resists are unable to produce a consistent wall angle and tend to exhibit resist foot necking such as 21 seen in FIG. 2.
As magnetic recording is pushed to higher areal densities, perpendicular recording has become a serious candidate to replace longitudinal recording. Perpendicular recording uses a magnetic yoke (surrounded by field coil) which terminates as a single pole that is used for the write head. This pole needs to be wide enough at one end to attach to the yoke and narrow enough at its the other end to confine the write flux to a very small area (typically measuring about 0.1 by 0.1 microns). Objects of this type are most easily formed using micro-molding techniques. Since negative resists can be easily applied to create such molds, it is important to be able to control the slope of the sidewalls.
A routine search of the prior art was performed with the following references of interest being found:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,310,626 (Fernandes et al) teaches using a tilt angle in photolithography while U.S. Pat. No. 6,504,675 (Shukh et al) discloses a trapezoidal write pole. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,255,035, Minter et al. describe two photoresist layers exposed to e-beam to form negative resist sidewalls and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,238,559, Feng et al. teach that undercut resist profiles are easily attainable using e-beam lithography.